1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of network data services. More particularly, the invention relates to an apparatus and method for managing network portal data.
2. Description of the Related Art
“Portals” are World Wide Web (“WWW”) sites which help users manage and navigate through vast amounts of information stored on the Internet. Some well known Internet portals include “Yahoo!®,” AltaVista®, and Excite®. Portals typically provide search features which allow users to search for particular types of content by entering keywords. In response to the keyword search request, the portal returns links to relevant Internet sites and/or relevant content stored directly on the portal. For example, if a user enters the keyword “snowboarding,” the portal may return a list of hyperlinks to Internet sites related to snowboarding as well as internal portal categories related to snowboarding (e.g., “Recreation>Sports>Snowboarding”).
In addition to the keyword search and content management capabilities described above, portals may also provide users with a variety of network applications such as, for example, email, electronic scheduling and contact management, chat groups, newsgroups, personal financing, and instant messaging, to name just a few.
Many portals also provide a registration feature which allows users to customize the types of information and/or applications which will be immediately accessible to the user on the portal. For example, the user may configure the portal to automatically retrieve and display information specified by the user such as, for example, the value of the user's stock portfolio, the weather forecast in the user's geographic location, an indication of any unread email messages, the user's appointments for the day, the local news headlines for the day, and/or the television listings for the user's favorite channels that evening.
When the user visits the portal (e.g., via a client computer), he/she may be presented with a single Web page that contains all of the foregoing information, automatically collected and transmitted by the portal. Typically, a portal will transmit a unique Web page and associated data to the user in this manner only after receiving proper authentication (e.g., user ID and password).